Evidence of meeting #98 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was enforcement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
How will you do that?
Are you bringing the RCMP with you on every river? I phoned every RCMP detachment in my riding during the legal harvesting, and DFO never once called those detachments to ask for help.
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We work with our partners. We work with—
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
It doesn't include actually showing up on the river to support DFO.
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
The decision on exactly when to come for different things rests with the RCMP, as I know the committee understands—
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
The RCMP serve as backup on call. In 2020, when we had the lobster crisis in St. Marys Bay, C and P called the RCMP for backup, and they came in large numbers to Atlantic Canada to help.
Not one call was made last year by DFO's C and P to get the RCMP to back them up to end this lawlessness. Why not?
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
C and P makes the decision on what they need in a particular instance. It depends on the situation, but we work in partnership with the RCMP and others. We work with CBSA as well. We work with other local police.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
CBSA said at this committee in December that there were no elvers going out of this country that they were aware of. They didn't even know when the elver season was. I don't think your communication with CBSA is working very well.
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I said in a response to that point, in committee in October, I believe it was, that our understanding is that there is an illegal harvest leaving the country.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
If we're going to stop the lawlessness and stop the crime, you have to arrest people on the river in large numbers. Sixty is token when there were thousands of them on the river on private property last year.
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We did significant patrols last year. We did make arrests.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Perkins.
We'll now go to Mr. Kelloway for six minutes or less, please.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have six minutes, so I'm going to try to get in as many questions as I can and allow you the time to answer them.
If the minister were to close the fishery, does this action give C and P officers and other law enforcement officials more tools to combat the illegal fishery? Does it give us more tools, and can you explain what they are?
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I'm not sure that it gives us different tools, but it certainly provides clarity.
Anyone who is harvesting eels will be offside. Any harvest will be illegal. When the elvers arrive in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, anything that our officers see will be subject to enforcement.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
How many rivers are we talking about here, between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, just to give the people a picture of it?
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
There are roughly 200.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Last season, there was a need for additional C and P officers, as has been put out on many occasions in this committee, to help monitor the elver fishery. How many additional officers were put in and where were they chosen from?
Was it just Nova Scotia and they were shuffled around? Was it Atlantic Canada? Was it Canada?
3:50 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
I don't have the number of officers, but we did, I think previously, give the committee the number of hours of enforcement activity and the number of patrols that we've done.
We brought in officers from regions across the country. For our contingent in various regions, we are able to move people temporarily into areas where they're needed. We did that with this fishery last year. We've done it in other years as well.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
I've heard on a few occasions that last year, when we closed the elver fishery for reasons that were a hundred per cent legitimate in terms of crime.... Mr. Perkins talked about damage to property and the potential for actual violence. I think it was some time in June, if I'm not mistaken—
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
Okay, it was April. I'm 53; my mind sometimes....
When we did stop it, I often heard that this decreased illegal fishing.
What do you say to that?
3:55 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We were still out enforcing, and there were instances where we charged after the closure. We would expect that this year as well.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
I wonder if I can go to Mr. Wentzell on that.
Mr. Wentzell, in terms of on the ground, what did you see before and after the closure?
3:55 p.m.
Doug Wentzell Regional Director General, Maritimes Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Thanks so much for the question.
As the deputy said previously, a closure gives a lot of clarity, not just to our officers but to law enforcement partners on this or any other fishery. That clarity provides a lot more certainty in terms of structuring operations and in terms of responding to any incidents of supply being hidden in the supply chain. Again, it's not that we have extra tools, but we certainly have a lot more clarity around what's authorized versus what's not authorized.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
We have clarity. Okay, I get that in terms of other groups. The RCMP, for example, has been brought up today. Walk me through how we approach the elver fishery in terms of that collaboration. Is it that we just meet with the RCMP once in a while, once in a blue moon? Are we interconnected? Are we hard-wired into them, and are they into us in terms of intel and enforcement?
I wonder if you could walk us through what the collaboration looks like in theory and also in practice.
3:55 p.m.
Regional Director General, Maritimes Region, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
We do collaborate really closely with enforcement partners, both RCMP and CBSA but also local police of jurisdiction as well as provincial enforcement counterparts.
What I would say is that the bulk of our collaboration involves two key streams. One would be the sharing of intel. This would be any information that we have that supports our colleagues and other enforcement bodies to carry out their roles and mandates, as well as coordinating capacity. When we need support, if there's a particular incident that we feel falls within the mandate or jurisdiction of other police forces, we share that information. That dialogue happens daily, and there are also structure tables that do that information sharing on a regular and frequent basis.
Just for clarity, fishery officers have a lot of authorities under the Fisheries Act to respond to fishing up to the point of first sale. In instances of violence, of trespassing and of some of the terrible incidents we've seen in this fishery over the last year, we rely heavily on our enforcement partners, including the RCMP and the police of jurisdiction, to respond to those.